MANAGEMENT OF Pf.ANTS IN FORCING. 
63 
growth of a plant must be healthy and mature before it will flower abundantly ; 
and to render it thus healthy and mature, it must be appropriately treated at all 
periods of its growth, and not merely while it is flowering. Some plants, indeed, 
do not grow at all till after they have bloomed, and these consequently require 
the most attention subsequently to their being taken from the forcing-house. 
The fittest treatment which can be bestowed on any exotic that has been 
forced, is to put it in those conditions where its growth will best be perfected. 
It should have light, heat, and water, in the same proportions as if it were still 
in flower, until its wood begins to ripen ; when part of the supply of water may 
be dispensed with. It must be as truly cultivated after flowering as before. And 
this is as indispensable to keep it in a nicely branched and bushy condition, as to 
render it healthy and productive. 
To flower a plant in unnatural circumstances, neglect it, and then suppose that 
it will necessarily of itself become fertile in the ensuing season, is poor philosophy; 
and is practised with no single class of plants save forced ones. It is the more 
extraordinary, too, as the expense of forcing, and the expectations excited, will 
not be justified unless something tolerably fine be obtained. And it is because 
we are convinced that here lies one of the chief causes of indifferent success in 
forcing, that we place so much stress on the injunction to be mindful of the plant's 
health and wants after it has shed its flowers. 
Had we to suggest a suitable way of managing plants that have been forced, 
we should simply say — treat them as greenhouse or stove plants are treated when 
they have done flowering at the ordinary season. Give them every facility for 
completing their developments, and strive to make those developments as strong 
and as regular as possible. Shoots should be stopped, their quantity diminished, 
the remains of the flowers be taken away, the soil stirred in the pots, or mulched 
with manure if requisite, or anything else be effected that the best culture may 
demand to be done, according to the nature of the plants. Above all things, the 
increasing light of the sun should be admitted to them, and water, whether applied 
to the roots or sprinkled over them with a syringe, be duly administered. 
There are a few other matters relative to the way in which flower-forcing is 
generally done, which it will be as well now to bring forward ; and these concern 
the rapidity of the process, the condition of the atmosphere, the nearness of the 
plants to the glass, the propriety of using bottom heat, and the subjects commonly 
chosen for the operation. 
With regard to the rapidity of the process, it may be observed, as it was of 
its commencement, that the more gradually the plant is made to advance, the more 
will it accord with nature, and the better will it suit the plant's health. Fast 
forcing inevitably weakens the specimen, and, besides giving its flowers a feeble 
character, producing an unfitness for subsequent use. It is consequently to be 
avoided. 
To go into some vineries or other hothouses, and notice the aridity of the 
